Friday, November 16, 2012

My Day in a Blog Post (Day 16)

So, as I'm sure you all know, today was the day I travelled to San Francisco in order to attend the Night of Writing Dangerously put on by NaNoWriMo every year in order to raise money. (In case you were wondering, this night garnered nano over $60k! I was pretty impressed.)

Anyway, since you all love listening to me talk so much (and, of course, care about my day to day life) I thought I would share with you all my experiences in travelling. In case you weren't aware, this was my first time taking a plane, so you're really going to get a fresh perspective.

This morning I got up at 6:30 a.m. on a day I didn't have to go to my day job. No, it's not really something I thought I would willingly do, and yet I had to do it in order to make it to the airport for 8 a.m. as our flight was scheduled to leave at 10.

I did not make it out of the house on time. As I'm sure many people who know me will tell you, I sometimes have issues with that. We did, however, make it to the airport by 20 after 8, and proceeded to get our boarding passes issued (no line, but an unfortunate incident with booking under a nickname held us up a bit) and headed toward customs.

That was where I made my first mistake. I had opted to bring with me hand lotion, as my hands tend to get dried and cracked (probably from living in or around Calgary my entire life) and I had noticed them getting pretty gross last night. Apparently you're not supposed to put that kind of stuff in your carry ons. Hand lotion was half emptied, then I was told there was still too much in the bottle, and we ended up throwing it out. I was sad to see it go, but I can always buy more, so it wasn't a big issue.

West Jet boarded our flight right on time, and we were even early taking off. I was nervous about this part, as I was told that it can make you feel sick. Rest assured, all went well. I didn't feel sick at all. My ears got a bit plugged, but that was only to be expected. On this flight was where we met Bro. No, that is not his real name. Yes, we did create an entire inside joke around the guy who sat in the same row as us without including him in it.

How that came around, is such a complicated story, I may save it for another day (or continue to keep it between us as it may end up being one of those 'you had to be there' moments). What I will say, though, is that Bro is so Bro, and we look up to him. He would definitely not leave anyone hanging.

The landing of the plane was jarring and rather unsettling. From the way the other passengers looked, I'm assuming I wasn't the only one who found it so, but I've been told that all flights are like that.

We had arrived in LAX. This is where the troubles really began. First we thought that we might have to transfer our bags ourselves. Down at the baggage claim, though, our bags never appeared. Then we were trotted through the same security measures that were put in place in Calgary (except this time there were NO metal detectors, and instead we got to get full body scans...crazy!) I'd like to point out that there didn't seem to be a single security guard there with a sense of humour. Not that I tried jokes, I wanted to get on the plane, but they glared at us like we were all criminals in the making and it was their job to make sure that we didn't become those criminals by having us empty our pockets. No joke, they were that serious.

Anyway, we headed up to our gate, but stopped to get food, as neither of us had eaten, and we thought we might want to do that. So we finally get over to our gate and manage to grab some seats. At this point we had about half an hour before our flight was supposed to start boarding, so we got ready to wait.

The people at LAX do not know how to use intercoms. I swear they sounded like they were running an auction. I barely understood anything that was said. What I did understand, though, was that a minute before we were due to board, we were told that our flight was being delayed by half and hour.

Okay, I can deal with half an hour. So we continued to stay seated, checking our phones for the time occassionally.

Then we were told that we would be delayed another half hour. This was when most of the people sitting there started to get testy (Except for Bro. Yes, he was on our connecting flight. No, we weren't sitting anywhere near him. We just assume he wasn't testy because he is so Bro.)

Finally, after OVER AN HOUR of delays, we were allowed to board the plane. We had wheels up AFTER the time we were supposed to arrive in San Francisco. Just saying.

On American Airlines, things did not go nearly as smoothly. The flight attendants were polite enough, but one of them kept walking by quickly and hitting my shoulder. They seemed to hate their jobs more than the West Jet employees, and rather than a fun demonstration for safety, we got to watch a video.

I only want to fly West Jet ever again. Sadly, this isn't something I can actually do, as we're flying back to LA on Wednesday to connect with (Thank God) a West Jet Flight.

When we finally got to San Francisco, we walked through the airport in amazement. Rather than the tension and general busy-ness of LAX, the San Francisco airport felt a little like we were walking through a mall. And not a busy mall. Like, at chinook in the middle of a weekday not anywhere near christmas. It was...relaxing. I didn't think I would ever use that word to describe an airport, but there you have it.

Their welcome sign was SIGNED! Just saying...

So, we walk outside, all relaxed and happy to finally be in San Francisco, and grab a cab to the hotel...

I have never been so scared in my life, and the other day I slipped on ice in my car and literally drove on the sidewalk. This cabby was weaving in and out of traffic, he took yellow lights as a suggestion, the lines that marked the lanes didn't seem to matter to him, and I kid you not, we nearly got in four accidents on the way to the hotel. And we paid HIM for that service...

But, now we're in our beautiful hotel room (of which I have attached photos) and settling down to do some writing (writing on the plane was pretty much impossible).

This week is going to be awesome! I can't wait to go to the out of towners night tomorrow, and then the Night of Writing Dangerously on Sunday ^^

The Epic Me

I am a yet unpublished writer that likes to work on far too many projects at the same time. A planner by nature, I am a huge advocate of figuring out the story before you start to write. I have a healthy obsession with stationary, and am currently working on Pandora, and hope to have it ready for submissions by January.